The Warrumbar (2025) is the debut novel by William J. Byrne that follows the coming-of-age story of young Aboriginal boy Robbie Brennan and how he navigates struggles with family, identity and grief growing up in 1969 Australia.
In this interview, UWAP intern Jess Burns speaks to William about the family photo inspiration behind this story and the importance of representing often-forgotten Aboriginal history and strong Aboriginal characters.
Jess Burns: You state briefly at the beginning of the novel that a photo of your nan from the 60s inspired this story. Could you speak more about that?
William J. Byrne: It's an old black and white photo, and it's hanging in a few of my aunties’ houses, as well as mine. It’s of my nan sitting in front of this old tin shack, and it looks like the shot has been taken without her realising. When I was younger and saw it, it didn't really register with me too much, but then as I got older, I asked my aunties more about it, and I realised that the shack is where my dad, my aunties, my uncle and nan grew up. It was an old tin corrugated iron shack, with no electricity and no hot water.
And I suppose it was only later that I realised that they were quite poor and a poor that you wouldn't really see often. So, it just got me very interested in how, five or six years before I was born, they were living in this tin shack. It made me look into it a bit more, ask questions, and really understand where my dad came from, where my aunties and uncles came from and what and how that was his life.
Jess: Though this story is a work of fiction, it does draw on your real life, as you said, as well as real-life events. How did you ensure that this blend of fact and fiction was done to respect these real events and people?
William: When I wrote the book and before releasing it, I did speak to my aunties, uncles and dad, just to see if they were comfortable with it. But while it does draw heavily upon some real-life events, it is a fictional book, and the major incident that happens in the book is a fictional event.
One of the things I've done is make the mission I included in the book, which were the Aboriginal Reserves that happened all across Australia, very generic. I decided to do this and take from different areas just to make sure everyone was comfortable with the story. And I won't say what reserve my nan grew up on, but I don't think it really matters for the story because of how these missions existed all over Australia, and I think that the premise of that is the important part.
I did make sure I was very conscious of how I represented these stories and events. Obviously, the characters are changed, there are extra characters that didn't exist and not everything is exactly real, but it was very influenced by my own family. And that's why when I looked at these pictures and started learning more about it, I thought that this was just very interesting for people to know about and to understand. There are a number of different books out there that do that anyway, but this was quite a personalised story and one that was just a good story to tell, with a setting that was also a good setting to tell.
And I want to add too, that this wasn't that long ago. This is in the living memory of all my aunties and my father, who are still here.
Jess: I loved Robbie’s character. He’s so likable and endearing and consistently holds this belief about always doing the right thing, despite all the hardship he experiences throughout the book. How did his character develop, and why did you choose to tell the story through his eyes?
William: His character is fictional, but it was highly inspired by my own father and some events that he went through. For instance, he went to a boys' home, which you don't hear about too much these days. So I thought that was an important part of the story, and it obviously really affected Robbie in the book.
Why did I talk from his eyes? Well, as I said, it was inspired by my father. Plus, I probably understand a 13 or 14-year-old boy better than if it went through one of his sisters' eyes. So I could draw on some of my own thoughts and feelings and things that I may have gone through. Robbie's story, being the oldest boy, was also quite important because he was the one who was held up to a higher standard in the family and the one who got the wrath of his father a lot.
Jess: The relationship between Robbie and his father really stood out to me when reading. Though the relationship was complicated and at times strained, you could tell there was real love there. What prompted you to have this relationship play out in the way it did?
William: A bit of this is drawn from some real experiences. Back then in the 60s, it was very common for these working-class men to be conflicted characters. Robbie’s father is a white man who came from a very working-class background, had a hard life himself, and while he had love for his family, he didn't know how to control himself. Robbie loved his father and ultimately forgave him, even though he could see the complexities.
In having a lot of conversations with family members and other people I've known, I learnt that people like Robbie's dad were quite common. It wasn't right, but it was common back then. But Robbie loved his father, and as a young man, to be acknowledged by your father when you were a young boy, I think it's quite powerful. That's why he wanted to spend that time with his dad, even though if he slighted his dad, he could be on the end of a belting. I think that's probably the most complicated relationship in the book – the dad and the kids.
Jess: The book is so clearly well-researched, from the history of the Missions to details on how to catch a rabbit. What did the research process for this book look like?
William: I started doing a lot of research many years ago, diving into this stuff about reserves and missions, and the one that my nan grew up on, specifically, too. There's a little bit out there, but there's still limited information about it. So, I did look through quite a lot of old newspaper articles trying to get a really good feel of how it was at that time, or what incidents came out of that and how the community saw that.
As I said in the editor’s note, I felt like my interest in it came a little bit too late after my nan passed away, so I was pretty disappointed about that. I wish that when I was younger, I had been as interested in it as I am now.
In terms of things like the rabbiting and yabbying, a lot of these things, coming from a regional town as I do and a working-class sort of country environment, I did a bit of that myself. Rabbiting only a few times because that wasn't for me. But yabbying, I really loved. I did do a bit of research on that, but a lot of it comes quite naturally when you write something about something you have an understanding of.
Jess: Aboriginal peoples' contributions to war efforts are something that has largely gone unacknowledged, and I really appreciated your inclusion of this discussion through the character of Moses. What or who inspired the character of Moses?
William: Moses was inspired by Reginald Saunders, who was the first commissioned Aboriginal officer in the Australian Army. He is getting a little bit of recognition these days, but it's a long time coming. When I was writing this story about Moses, it came from different elements of reading articles or reading stories about the injustices done to particular Aboriginal Indigenous people over the years, and there are some quite famous stories where they've been sent to jail for things they didn't do and so on.
I wanted Moses to be a clever character. He was an intelligent man, but because of his circumstances of life, he ended up where he ended up. I also wanted to highlight how Aboriginal peoples were treated back then by the general populace – in the book, Moses is regarded as a drunk, and that was just given. We know he wasn't, but people would just believe that straight away.
I just felt like it was important to put a very strong Aboriginal character in there, because a lot of the stories are forgotten.
About the Author
William J. Byrne grew up in the regional towns of southern New South Wales, on Wiradjuri and Ngunnawal country. His formative years were shaped by a traditional working-class family on one side and a family with systemic disadvantage on the other. A lifelong reader with a passion for storytelling, William has been intrigued by the ways history and circumstance shape people’s lives and opportunities. This interest in the social sciences led William to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in Communications (Social Inquiry) and a Graduate Diploma in Government Administration. Over the years, William has worn many hats – government professional, a tour guide in India, manager of a Travel Agency, contact centre supervisor, art consultant, hotel and hospitality worker, supermarket night stacker, milkman, paperboy and more. In addition to his love of reading and writing, William is also an avid musician who plays guitar and piano and sings. With the release of The Warrumbar, he can now add ‘novelist’ to his diverse list of roles. He now lives in Northern Sydney on the lands of the Darramurragal people with his wife, daughter, and Border Collie.
About the Interviewer
Jess Burns is an upcoming graduate of Curtin University, completing a Bachelor of Arts double majoring in Professional Writing and Publishing, and English and Cultural Studies.